


Stolen Golden Time

by dashielldeveron



Category: Red Letter Media, RedLetterMedia RPF, Space Cop, redlettermedia
Genre: F/M, Soulmate AU, Soulmate marks, i'm embarrassed too, yeah i know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:21:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23586040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashielldeveron/pseuds/dashielldeveron
Summary: Your soulmate mark has always been just a black bar on your finger. Once the earth is almost sucked into a black hole, a name appears.Just your luck your soulmate is an overenthusiastic cop when you're more-or-less a criminal.
Relationships: Detective Ted Cooper/Reader, Mike Stoklasa/Reader, Ted Cooper/Reader
Comments: 26
Kudos: 37
Collections: Red Letter Media Fanfic Quarantine Collection





	1. This Isn't the Agent Cooper You Wanted

The day had to come eventually.

Really, you’d only noticed the change in your soulmate mark while you tended to the cut on your hand from climbing over a chain-link fence. You’d sliced open the skin between your thumb and index finger and had been sucking the blood off of it when you saw that you no longer had a thick, black stripe on the side of your middle finger—instead, there was a name.

In the tiny, greasy kitchen of a suspected murderer’s historic tavern, you found out your soulmate’s name was _Theodore Cooper._

Registering at the DMV was hell, but after three and a half hours of waiting in a stained, plastic chair, you were entered into the international database and sent on your way.

No one had claimed you.

There had been a civil engineer back at the beginning of the twentieth century named Theodore Cooper, but he was long dead, which was very unfortunate, because he had that pretty-boy-cheekbone-jawline combination going. Another search had led to a lung doctor and a few other people, but they didn’t have your name.

So, there you were at your day job, your middle finger practically burning as you tried not to draw attention to it. Your soulmate mark had caused enough gossip among your co-workers; you didn’t care to have it cause more. You’d never met anyone else with a blocked-out soulmate mark, and you couldn’t find anyone else online with it, either. You’d left the stripe alone and strove not to think about it. Maybe it was a fluke, you know? Maybe it was a weird birthmark, and you didn’t have a soulmate.

But there it was: blatant, a shiny black, and in a cramped cursive, as if someone had scrawled it haphazardly at the bottom of a grocery list, as you pointed out the use of chiaroscuro in Gaugin and Degas in the Milwaukee Art Museum. Tourists were too occupied to ask, but you kept glancing over your shoulder for co-workers.

You’d been so anxious about it that you didn’t know that aliens had attacked Milwaukee until a week and a half after the fact, the same day you got summoned to the Milwaukee Police Department.

You stared up at the nondescript, cinderblock-grey building and gulped. Had they finally found you out for trespassing and possibly tampering with crime scenes? Prison sounded _terrible_. But they couldn’t know it was you; no way. You were careful.

Fucking hell.

“Hi,” you said, sweating bullets as the receptionist looked up from her desktop, “I have an appointment with Chief Washington? I got a phone call this morning.”

“Back of the hall, and fucking hurry, please,” she said, and you narrowed your eyes. “Do anything you can to break up that racket.”

You instructed yourself to make eye contact with the cops and smile, like a normal person, as you made your way to the last office. No one had any cause need to suspect you; everything was fine. Really. You had on your non-threatening clothes (including a ghastly, hand-embroidered cardigan, deliberately made kind of shittily to give off the signal that I Am So Timid and Law-Abiding That I Cannot Even Perform a Stereotypically Cat Lady Craft Well), so so long as nobody thought it strange that a young woman was paying a little too much attention to the bulletin board with a record of recent break-ins.

Through Chief Washington’s office door came the sound of pottery breaking.

“First, a denial of transfer to Chicago homicide, and now this?” came a shout that seemed like it strained the man’s vocal chords, like it was unnatural and hokey, “It’s degrading!”

“Put that cigarette _down_ , detective.”

Knocking on the frosted glass, you had to wait a moment before the door opened, tapping your foot through the sounds of muffled cursing and rearranging of furniture. The office air hit you like pollen on a spring day, and you spotted the culprit: a puffy-vested cop eating cheese fries with his gloves on, and that’s where all his attention was directed.

Chief Washington sat behind his desk, sweat seeping into his collar and the knot of his red tie, and he pointed curtly at the empty seat next to someone who smelt like your grandmother’s closet. He had too much gel in his neat, side part, and he had the permanent, vaguely suspicious look of someone comparing breads in a grocery store. Since when do people wear trench coats anymore? But he did have warm eyes and smoky eyelashes to die for—clearly, since you noticed them on your first once-over. But still, never trust a cop.

“Hello, Chief Washington,” you said, crossing your legs to look small and folding your hands in your lap to look worried, “I received a phone call from you this morning, and you told me to come here as soon as I could. I’m—I’m not in trouble, am I? I’m—”

“A _woman_?” The guy next to you said it with such disgust that you retracted the warm-eyes-good-eyelashes. Fuck him. “My soulmate is a _woman_?”

Hold up WHAT. “The fuck?” You jerked your head in his direction. “The _fuck_?”

He noticed the stares and tucked his trench coat around himself. “This is _not_ to imply that I am a homosexual, but I had thought that my soulmate being a woman is beneath me.”

The cheese fries cop spoke for the first time in a gravelly, cheese-fry obstructed voice. “That’s the point, isn’t it? _Yeaaaah._ ”

Trench coat bitch wrinkled his nose. “I have always entertained the possibility of a platonic soulmate. Either that, or my soulmate mark simply told me the name of some futuristic chewing gum. It’s a name I’m not familiar with.”

“My name is perfectly normal, thanks,” you said, scowling, “How do you know it’s me? Where’s your mark?”

Chief Washington brought a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat.

“It’s, uh, not exactly something I display to the general public, but the police chief says you’ve got my name, and I’ve got yours.”

“ _You’re_ Theodore Cooper?”

“Ted, actually. Detective Ted Cooper! I’m from the past,” he said.

You sank down in your seat. “I’m sorry? The fuck’s that mean?”

Chief Washington cleared his throat again. “Have you been living under a damn rock? He’s been all over the news for the past week. He and Space Cop over there saved the world from gold-stealing aliens. We wouldn’t be alive right now, if it weren’t for Coope—both of them.” He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “Cooper was cryogenically frozen for sixty years and woken up almost two weeks ago.”

“Oh, fuck,” you said, holding up your hand, “That’s when his name showed up.”

Chief Washington examined your finger while digging around in a desk drawer, and he nodded, releasing your hand as he retrieved a bottle of tums. “That’s him, all right. And if I could see your driver’s license…”

Ted Cooper tried not-so-subtly to look at your hand, but you made it into a fist, shooting a glare in his direction while the chief checked out your credentials.

“Yep, y’all’re soulmates,” said Chief Washington, oblivious to your glazed over expression as you stowed away your wallet, “Now, get the fuck out of my office. I’ve got work to do, and you’ve got work to do. Space Cop, stay. We’ve got to talk about the case of my missing sandwich.”

You followed Cooper out into the hallway, shutting the office door behind you, but before he could get far, you grabbed him by his stupid fucking badge, dust coating your fingers. “Listen, bitch,” you began.

“Bitch?” His eyebrows shot up. “But I’m a man! _That_ is an insult for women.”

You’re going to murder him, and he won’t be around to arrest you. “Hoo, boy, that’s a lot to unpack, but you’ll do it later. Where’s your fucking soulmate mark?”

He glanced off to the side. “I don’t exactly want to say.”

“Then show me.”

Cooper turned more towards you, his back to the rest of the office. “It’s in a rather _private_ place,” he said under his breath, “Showing you out in the middle of the police station might get me a penalty for public indecency.”

“Fine,” you said, yanking him down the hall by the cuff of his coat, “Bathroom.”

He jerked away from you. “The _women’s_ bathroom?”

Grimacing, you raised a hand—to slap him or choke him, you didn’t know—but you lowered it, tucking the tight fist into your cardigan pocket. “All right, then, we’ll go into the men’s.”

“But you’re a—”

“The fucking parking lot, and that’s your last option.”

And so, carefully shielded by the cracked door of your car, you stood with crossed arms while Detective Ted Cooper slowly shed his trench coat, put his trench coat back on, started to unbutton his shirt but had to go back to loosen his tie, and just fucking carry on in a useless manner until he held his unbuttoned shirt together, frowning.

“Now, you can’t laugh at me,” he said, easing himself down into the driver’s seat, “This is a delicate matter.”

“Go on.”

And there it was: your signature, penned across the curve of his stomach with its deep blue ink sporadically interrupted by stretch marks. It lay at what must have been the end of his ribcage, near the faint, red line from where he’s hunched over in his seat repeatedly.

“Hardly delicate,” you said at last, shifting your weight to one foot.

Cooper raised his chin, as if to look down on you, even though he was sitting. “The belly-tummy area is _personal_.”

“Sure.”

“Do you have the time? I lost my watch recently.”

“Why, you running late?” you asked, pulling your phone out of your pocket, “It’s…ten-fifteen. Why?”

“Hm. I’ve been given a tip that _someone_ is going to break into the Landmark 1850 Inn, Historic Tavern. Venture into the past, it says on their sign! I’m not supposed to give out this information,” said Cooper, leaning in closer, “but that bar is the suspected hideout of the Milwaukee Space Murderer. I’m on the case.” He licked his lips and grinned. “I’ve _also_ deduced that the Space Murderer is _not_ …working alone. I’ve been keeping an eye on the place, and there’s been evidence of several break-ins in the back, particularly—” He jabbed his finger at you. “—around the kitchen.”

Your stomach lurched. “What tavern did you say?”

“The Landmark. I’ve investigated some messy evidence around the chain-link fence in the back…the owner may not even know the murderers are there.” Cooper sat back in the driver’s seat and stroked his chin. “Yes, it’s my job to stop those lice and save the booze. And the civilians, of course.” He shook himself out of his brief reverie and stood, the belt of his coat catching on your car door. “I’ve got to get going. The crook could be there at any moment.”

“Are you—” Your voice cracked, and you coughed. “Are you covering this alone?”

“I’m the only man for the job,” he said, shoving you to the side to close your car door, “No one else is capable.”

“Of course,” you said, sucking in through your teeth.

“Say, girlie,” he said, and at your intense glare, he shifted his jaw and corrected (?) himself. “Ma’am. Since I showed you my soulmate mark, could I get a look at yours?”

You flipped him off.


	2. Temporary Secretary

Step one: get him liquored up. Step two: nothing.

“How the fuck do you have my number,” you said, throwing your purse on the corner table with a clatter, “and why’d you give it to the bartender?” The chair screeched against the floor when you yanked it out, making the nearby patrons of the Landmark Inn glance your direction.

Detective Cooper was circling his fingertip around the rim of his pint glass. “Back in my day, we only had one type of beer. It was called _beer_.” He licked his finger, and ringing the rim started a slight hum. “There’s so many types of beer now.”

You clicked your tongue. “How do you have my phone number? Was it on file at the police station?”

“I haven’t tried them all yet,” he said, and he tilted his glass so that he could dip his finger in his drink. “If—if I keep drinking at the rate I’ve been today, I’ll be able to get through all six hundred by…the end of the week.”

“Yeah,” you said, frowning as he deep-throated his own finger, “Why’d the bartender call me? Cooper.” You snapped in his face, and he had to blink a few times, his eyes crossing, before he could focus on you.

His mouth opened, his tongue flopping forward a bit. Wrinkling his nose, Cooper closed his mouth.

“Watch my purse,” you said, sliding off the chair and striding towards the bar. You were about to demand the bartender’s attention but stopped yourself. Your goal is not to make an impression at this place.

Eventually, the heavily moustached bartender told you that you were his emergency contact? The police station was tired of the bar calling them. Apparently, Cooper had been having trouble getting home at night. Every night. By all accounts, it made no sense, but something something Milwaukee wanted one of its recent heroes not passed out on the street again.

_Fucking hell_ , you thought, digging out your lockpick set as you knelt on knobbly carpet on the second floor, _Why does my soulmate have to be a barely-walking disaster?_ Cooper was a fucking loser, but, you supposed, at least he was distracting the staff enough for you to sneak upstairs.

How did Cooper end up decided to stake out this place? You deduced something might be going on at the Landmark through triangulating the locations of the murders—all between here, the art museum, and the Forest Home Cemetery. The triangle got smaller and smaller the more work you did, and this one—you might be a little too obsessed with this case. The surrounding hotels all had the same person checking in but not staying even one night, and one night, after climbing out of a window of a Best Western office, you noticed that a light on the second floor of the Landmark.

The second floor was completely barred off. Not even the owner used the space; it was storage for old furniture and broken equipment.

The same room on the corner kept lighting up only in the early hours of the morning. Might be nothing.

But the latest body was found within a hundred yards of the place, and once you’d gone through the order receipts in the garbage (always two pints of the same tap beer and a packet of shitty pretzels) with the same name as the hotel records. What’s more—and you were frankly a little embarrassed at how much trash you rooted through—each victim had bought something from the Landmark soon before they were killed.

So, whoever this fucking Grigg was, you’re going to find him. Even if he’s not involved with the Space Murders, he’s acting really suspiciously.

You pressed your ear to the door. The lock was in the handle itself, which meant it was more finicky than if the lock were simply above it, and you wanted to listen to the pins shift. The last two were tricky.

Flinching, you knocked your head against the doorframe at a crash downstairs. That might be—

“ _Cooper!_ ”

Of course. So, quickly, quickly—the penultimate pin lifted, and the final followed. You turned the knob with a grin, but it was stuck. The knob turned; it was unlocked, and you could hear the latch enter and exit, but the door wouldn’t budge. You felt under the door crack, but nothing obstructed the door, as far as you could tell.

“ _Cooper, if you don’t get your ass_ —”

They’ll be looking for you, even though that idiot has no right to demand that you babysit him. You’ll drop him off at his house, and that’s _it_.

A waitress found you coming out of the ladies’ room, and you found Cooper outside the bar, shoving your spilt purse contents back inside it. You didn’t help him as he finally picked up your tic tacs and measuring tape and slowly stood with a groan.

“ _Aah_ aa,” said Cooper, holding a hand over his heart, “What are you doing there?”

“Find any evidence, screwboy?”

Furrowing his brow, he ducked his head, and he held out your purse by the strap.

“My car’s out back,” you said, “Where are you staying? This is the one time I’m driving you, by the way; after this, you’re sentenced to taxis.”

His shoes scuffed in the gravel, kicking up dust as he trudged behind you into the parking lot.

***

“Hold it,” you said, putting your car in park, “Before you get out, I’ve got to let you know: I hate you. You are the worst.”

Cooper sniffed and gave a huff. “This would’ve happened in the end, anyway.”

You made him carry all your shit upstairs to your apartment, and he complained the whole time. You didn’t bother doing a scan of your place for stray laundry before letting him in, because surely the man’s seen panties before—but, it occurred to you, while you set your prescriptions and goldfish crackers on the kitchen counter, that he might have not. He could be a hundred-year-old virgin, for all you knew.

After grabbing a capri-sun from the fridge, you whacked the cigarette out of his hand as you plopped next to him on the couch and propped your feet on the coffee table.

“You can’t smoke in personal living spaces, either? What _has_ the world come to?”

“Not in my apartment, you’re not,” you said.

“You clearly don’t have anything valuable in here,” said Cooper, frowning as he took a cursory look around your shitty living room and over the counter into the kitchen.

You gritted your teeth but held your tongue. It was good that he thought nothing was worthwhile in your house, since most of your decorations and a good deal of your books were stolen. You didn’t consider yourself a thief, but if you ever found something interesting in a building you sneaked into, you lifted it, so long as it wouldn’t be missed. Book eight in a series wouldn’t be taken, because that’s something you’d notice was gone, but a cheap-o lizard figurine from an abandoned glass menagerie was free game. Your favourite was either an embroidery hoop of David Bowie, currently on your nightstand, or a 5x7” print of a dinosaur holding some lilies from a bankrupt, second-hand warehouse.

If your employer at the art museum saw your apartment, she’d fire you for tacky, mismatching furniture alone.

“Already nagging me,” said Cooper, picking his cigarette off the carpet and tucking it into his coat, “You sound like my wife.”

“Is that a simile, or are you married?”

“I suppose I’m a widower,” he said, and he shuffled off his trench coat, “My wife has been dead for ten years. My kids don’t know me at all; I’m a stranger to them. They’re older than I am, at this point.”

“Do- _huh_?” you said, unwrapping your capri-sun straw, “You have _children_?”

He sighed. “Three, disappointing daughters.”

“Wait a second,” you said, and you jabbed the straw into the pouch. “You married someone who wasn’t your soulmate? Are you as dumb as you look?”

“Her name was Marigold, and I appreciated her, even though she wasn’t too good at sewing buttons back on my shirts. Her soulmate was someone called Paul McCartney, but we never found out who he was.”

“Oh, God.” You bit your knuckle. “Oh, my God.”

“Oh, yes. It’s why I’m on sixteen antidepressants.”

“Oh, my God,” you said, rising and beginning to pace, “So your wife died in 1995—”

“Ten years ago was 2005,” said Cooper, and you blanched.

“God. Fuck. Fucking shit,” you said, running your hands through your hair, “Paul McCar—you don’t know about the Beatles, do you?”

“There were insects in my time,” said Cooper, crossing his arms and tapping his fingers on his elbow, “I’m not completely stupid.”

“Linda died in ’98, so—oh, my God. I need a moment,” you said, sitting on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, “I just need a minute. Hold on.” You held your head between your knees and took a few deep breaths.

“I don’t see what the problem is,” said Cooper from the couch, as he crossed his legs to rest his ankle on the opposite knee, revealing loose, off-white socks.

You raised your head to glare at him. “Of _course_ you fucking—why’d you marry someone who wasn’t your soulmate?”

He draped his trench coat over the back of the couch. “Why shouldn’t I? We liked each other well enough, and I’m not going to cook. Marigold wanted someone to take care of her.”

You might cry. Lots of empathy for this poor woman—someone else stuck with this incompetent sexist—maybe you could contact his kids and see if he has a history of domestic abuse, or anything. “Toss me my capri-sun,” you said, holding out your hands, “The pouch thing I was drinking.”

“I can read.” Cooper delicately pinched its edge, but he got up and walked over to you. He crouched and placed it into your hands, and then he shifted to sit next to you on the floor. He crackled his knuckles while you sucked your drink to flatness. “If you’re,” he started slowly, “If you’re jealous of her, we weren’t married for long, and I’m working on learning to love you, just as much as I loved her.”

You’ve got to be calm, otherwise you’re going to slip into a panic attack. “Cooper,” you said, “I am in no way jealous.” Except in that she is dead, and you are not. “This situation is overstimulating for me, and you appear to have a personality with which I am not accustomed to dealing.” You set your trash on the coffee table. “Also, I met you this morning. You don’t need to work on _loving_ me.” From the way he talked about his wife, he probably couldn’t invest himself emotionally, anyway.

Licking his lips, Cooper moved to sit cross-legged. “Why not? We’re soulmates. It’s going to happen eventually, so why fight it? Are _you_ married?”

“Fuck, no,” you said, “I’ve seen the men in the dating pool, and practically all of them are porn-sick freaks who don’t think women are people.”

“Women are people?” Cooper held up his hands when you shot him a look. “A joke! A joke. I’ve learnt recently that—what, what was it? Something about women being able to do anything men can do. Haven’t seen one piss standing up yet, though.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose.

“But you’re not married. That’s good. It means the courthouse wasn’t lying to me. I have another question,” said Cooper, “and I need you to take it seriously. Do you get UV ray sickness and vomit up plorgabile?”

“I’m going to bed,” you said, pushing on your knees to stand, “I’ve had enough.”

“It’s important.” Cooper stood more quickly than you expected him to be able to. “The last person who did that was an alien.”

You held your arms out to the sides before letting them drop. “Do you think I could be anything but human?” You were crossing into your bedroom when he asked again, and you sighed, leaning on the doorframe. “I’m not an alien,” you said, “I’m human. I’m not vomiting up plo, porg—that, and I’m very, very tired. Please leave me alone.”

Cooper nodded way too much, and he, walking your way, said, “You’re right, honey; it’s been a long day, and we’re not entirely sober. Let’s go to bed.”

“You,” you said, holding out your hand to stop him, “You are sleeping on the couch. I do not know you. You are only in my apartment because you are extremely nonthreatening. Don’t be nosy. Don’t go through my stuff. Take off your damn shoes, and go to sleep.”

“But we’re—”

“Couch. _Now_.”

You shut the door to your bedroom, cutting off his mumbling about how much of an asshole you were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> marigold is a fictional character. linda and paul are definitely soulmates.


	3. Hell Hath No Fury Like a Slithis

You woke up to the sound of retching, but your first concern wasn’t the mess but that your alarm hadn’t gone off. Cursing yourself for not setting any of them last night, you zipped up your pencil skirt and calculated exactly how late you would be in accordance with your manager’s schedule and what exhibit she’d be in when you sneaked in.

You were slipping on your shoes as you left your bedroom to see Cooper hunched over on the couch with his head in his head, heavily sweating through his white button-down—he’d slept in his suit? At least take the fucking tie off, man.

Jumping to slide on the heel, you behind the couch and leant forward to ruffle his hair, leaving your hand all sweaty, and he leant forward, trying to hide the pool of vomit on the carpet.

You gripped the back of the couch behind him, wiping the sweat off. “Fuck, Cooper, what the hell?”

“Jesus Christ,” he said, “Jesus, fuck, I—I didn’t—I’ve been all fucky since I unfroze. Stuff with my sinuses and my balls—”

“Cooper, I’m late for work already, okay? I need you to take care of this,” you said, removing your hands once he slumped backwards onto them, “The cleaning stuff is at the bottom of the pantry, with all the plastic grocery bags.”

Cooper turned to you. “I don’t know how to—you’re—? You’re going to work?”

“Yes, and I’m late. I’m leaving. Fifteen minutes ago,” you said, and you had your hand on the fucking doorknob when he called out again.

“Why the hell do you work?”

Frowning, you looked over your shoulder. “Because I’m a human person living alone in a metropolitan area? The fuck’s your problem with this?”

Cooper clasped his hands across his stomach. “I thought you would have some inheritance, or your family would support you.”

You scoffed. “Do I _look_ —”

“Besides, now that we’ve found each other, I thought that I would be providing for you.”

“Oh, wow,” you said, pinching the bridge of your nose, “I don’t have time for this. Look, just—just clean up your fucking puke and go fuck yourself, or something—but not in my apartment.”

***

You stayed at the museum as long as you could, but even after finishing some paperwork, talking to any patron who looked vaguely bamboozled or intrigued, and stopping to get a smoothie on a whim, you eventually had to go home.

A portrait of Ronald Reagan greeted you on arriving. You closed the door and entered again, hoping it wouldn’t be there, but it was. And there’s some muffled ballad coming through the walls, along with a particularly pungent scent of lemon—an excess of lysol? But you hung your jacket on one of the hooks, now next to a fake ficus plant.

Opening the kitchen door, the music now hit you full volume: your embarrassing Chordettes record was playing by the window, and Cooper was nowhere to be seen. The spot on your carpet was mostly gone, but you’d probably have to go back and go over it again yourself.

“Cooper?” You set your junk on the counter and took off your shoes, quieting padding through your apartment. “ _Coo_ per?”

“You have a strange collection of records,” came Cooper’s voice from behind you, and he spread your records across the kitchen counter. “I only recognise two of them.” He held up your Etta James album.

“How long were you frozen, again?” You scooted up next to him. “I got you a smoothie, if you want it. I don’t know what you like, but it’s strawberry.”

“Sixty years,” he said, “Cryogenically frozen in 1955 for a stage four malignant brain tumour.”

“Ho…holy shit? How’d that work out for you?”

“Turns out it was nothing. I was frozen for nothing. And now I’m clinically depressed, biologically fucked, estranged from my family, out of time, out of space—I wake up every morning drenched in sweat in a puddle of my own vomit, thinking of putting a pistol against my head—”

“That’s rough,” you said, “but all you can do is adjust.”

“I wasn’t complaining,” said Cooper, glancing in your direction.

“Yes, you were.”

“Yeah, okay, I was.” He took the smoothie, held it up to the light, but didn’t drink any. “Was—was work good?”

“It was great, actually,” you said, climbing onto to counter and dangling your legs off the edge, “Spent most of the day with a super engaged group of Swedish tourists, who, for some God-awful reason, decided to visit Milwaukee. They had family here. I work at the art museum, by the way.”

Cooper made a move to sit on the counter, too, but he couldn’t make the jump, or maybe changed his mind. “Art museum,” he said afterwards, “That’s good. That’s nice.”

“I give tours and do research,” you said, kicking your feet, “I’m in training to do restorations.”

“That’s nice. That’s good.” He slurped his smoothie and made a face. “That’s delicious. Do you have any booze?”

“Not for you,” you said, “Other than my records, what else have you gone through? My underwear drawer?”

“God, fuck. No.” Red creeped up around the tips of his ears. “I’ve been out most of the day.”

“Great. Speaking of which, I guess, do you have any other clothes besides that nasty suit?”

Cooper’s jaw dropped, and he ran this palms down his white button-down to smooth the wrinkles and failed. The sleeves still had his rusted cufflinks on, even though he’d sweated through the fabric and really should’ve rolled his sleeves up, or something, and the brown-mustard suit jacket was tossed over the back of your couch, its sleeves inside-out. His suit pants were too loose on him, and the bottom cuffs trailed dirt on your carpet. His badge balanced precariously on the edge of the coffee table (you made a mental note to see if it were still valid later), but his tie, though loosened, still fucking hung around his neck.

“ _Nasty_?” Cooper tugged at his tie. “I like this suit. This suit is the height of fashion—sixty, sixty years ago.”

“So, do you have other clothes? Clothes that _fit_? Have you showered in the past week?”

“ _Perhaps._ ”

“Cooper, I’m not gonna tolerate—”

“I have some clothes from the police station,” he said, crossing his arms and grimacing at the floor, “None of them fit well. They’re awfully revealing, too. I wouldn’t know where to go.” He lifted his head and took a step towards you. “Maybe you and I could—”

“No,” you said, scratching the back of your head, “I’ll give you a list of places to go. Take a day off. They’ll let you. Go to the shops, get measured, and keep your nose down.”

Cooper nodded, his eyes glazing over. Biting his lip, he shook himself out of it. “I’ll see what I can do.” He took a deep slurp from his smoothie and sighed. “So, what are you cooking for dinner?”

“You just keep hitting those home-runs, don’t you, Cooper?” You leant against the back of the couch and shook your head. “I don’t know; cook yourself a fucking baked potato, or something.”

His mouth twitched a couple of times, but he joined you in leaning against the couch. The fuck is he so close? The fuck? His muffin top overflowing his belt pressed against your hip—lowkey gross and sticky because of all the sweat; that part of the shirt was soaked.

“Hey, dude, you’re really close—”

Cooper was kissing you, but you hardly had time to notice the _audacity_ before you were lurched backwards onto the floor, the remnants of a static lightning bolt that had connected your lips still sizzling and crackling in the air. Your hand shot to your lips, thrumming, as branches of thin, blue lightning fizzed into nothing. Cooper, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, was also touching his mouth, a dark blue fading into the natural pink.

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. “What the _hell_ did you do?”

“Was that the first time we touched?” He dragged his thumb across the seal of his lips. “As in, skin to skin?”

“I don’t know,” you said, pushing yourself up and having to grab the back of the couch—your vision blacked out temporarily, and your head throbbed while it cleared. “I don’t know. I might be dehydrated.”

Cooper followed you into the kitchen, the door swinging behind him. “But was that the first time our bare skin actually touched?”

You got a mug out of the cupboard. “Does it matter?”

“Let me—” He reached for the faucet and then your wrist. “Let me see if it happens again.”

“The fuck?” You splashed your drink onto his face. “You’re not doing that again.” Guiding his back to the kitchen door, you gripped a spluttering Cooper’s tie (not having as much of an effect as you’d have liked due to how loose it was). “Listen, bucko. We may be soulmates, but I have no obligation to submit to anything you deal me. You’re not gonna kiss me out of the blue, ever. I did not invite it. I don’t fucking know you.”

You took a step back, glaring at him before turning your back to get more water.

Cooper cleared his throat, and he spoke at a rare, quiet volume from behind you. “Then you _do_ want me to romance you.”

Your cup overflowed into the sink.

***

An hour after Cooper had finally stopped blathering and had passed out on the couch, you took the chance to escape. By the dim light of your phone, you staked out the Landmark from the cemetery, waiting for that moment late at night when the second storey window lit up. Your boombox was big enough to pass for a gravestone, so you lay behind it and in wait.

Around 3:45, someone turned a light on. So, by glinting streetlamps, you gathered a few pebbles from the gravel pit out back and started throwing them at the window. They hit thrice before the light went out, and you paused, taking a moment before flinging more.

With difficulty, the window was shoved open. You hastened to prop the boombox on your shoulder, but no reaction came from the blackened room.

Cranking the volume, you lifted the boombox above your head to serenade the apartment with the dulcet, opening strains of “Come On Eileen” (chosen for its relatively universal favour; you had considered “Space Oddity,” but ultimately, that might imply that you know he’s the culprit. If you rickrolled him, he’d definitely kill you).

The lyrics had yet to begin when a voice carried from the open window, and you turned down the song. “What is it that you require?” Nasal. Moderately young. Local accent.

“Is…is Aaron there?”

Fingers curled over the window sill. “Aaron is not here. What is your purpose in disturbing me?”

“I—I was gonna John Cusack it up for Aaron,” you said, easing your boombox onto the ground, “Are you sure you’re not Aaron?”

“I am _not_ Aaron,” came the voice, this time connected to a tiny, bearded man poking his head out of the window, “I am Grigg.”

Straying from the plan on impulse, you then did something very, very stupid.

“Grigg? That’s my soulmate’s name!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all the grotesque is canon, babes.


	4. Like a Prayer

Grigg tapped his square-cut fingernails in quick succession on the polished bar. “It is most unusual that you would be in Milwaukee.”

“Oh?” You spun on your barstool to face him. “I wouldn’t think so, since you’ve made it here, after all your travelling. You never said where you were from?”

Grigg grunted at the bartender, who placed two pints of a tap beer and a pack of pretzels in front of him. He took a few suspiciously long glugs of one of them, the light foam leaving residue in his blond moustache. “I for one am simply relieved that you are not the musician. Her discography is…questionable. I did not ever think I would find a specimen with the same name as she.” He set the pint glass on the bar with a soft _clink_. “You have not yet requested to examine my soulmate mark. You are the first human I have encountered to show any sign of reticence.”

“What are you doing in Milwaukee, Grigg?” Glancing at your lap, you made a point to slide one of your knees between his—the barstools were _just_ close enough to make it provocative. "It’s not exactly big on tourism.”

His eyes were totally blank for a long, long moment in which he didn’t blink. “I am here for my health,” he said eventually, and he returned to his beer.

Well, you supposed murder was better for his health than the victims’. Don’t be suspicious. _Don’t be._ Suspicious. “Oh? Is anything wrong? How can I help?”

Grigg shook his head, and he ripped open his pack of pretzels. “I would advise you not to indulge any worry you might have for me. It is a matter of personal growth.”

“I see,” you said. You didn’t. “In that case, I hope you’re able to make the right steps to recovery, then. What do you wanna talk about? I have a lot of opinions on _Evil Dead_ and the danger of relying on images fed to us by popular culture instead of producing them ourselves—I guess we should be boring about this at first, though. I work at an art museum; what do you do?”

Grigg swallowed pretzel, and your eyes shot to his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Let me see your soulmark.”

You faked a nervous smile, scratching the back of your neck. “Mine’s not exactly in a place I show the general public.”

His brow furrowed, Grigg spread his legs farther and crossed his arms (his leather jacket creaked under the strain). “I am no longer the general public.”

You said the first thing that came to mind. “It’s on my labia, Grigg.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see the problem.”

“I’m not _whipping it out_ in the middle of the bar.”

“Ah,” said Grigg, nodding, “You’re one of _those_ humans.”

“Sure,” you said, and before you could say anything else, Grigg slid off his barstool and lifted you off yours. You were taken aback by the gesture (your waist burned where he touched it), and he had to pull on your wrist to get you to follow him out of the main restaurant and into the hallway to the bathrooms and the upstairs.

Wait, being alone with a serial killer wasn’t the best idea. But you have your pepper spray in your purse and the knives in your boots, so if you can find physical evidence, that’d be—

Before you took the first step upstairs, Grigg stopped you to back you against the wall, directly under a square of peeling wallpaper. Is this the part where he slits your throat? Is this the part where he—he slides his knee between your legs to grind it against your crotch?

“You need to accept my soulmark. It’s customary in my culture,” he said, and he, holding you against the wall with his knee, shed his leather jacket, his biceps stretching the black fabric of his t-shirt to make it slightly transparent—you shot out a hand to squeeze one tentatively, and yes, this man could strangle you at any moment.

Grigg hooked a finger over his collar and yanked it to the side, where the bubble-lettered signature of someone named _Madonna_ lay where his shoulder curved into neck.

“How do you want me to accept it?” you asked, and, with a slight smirk, Grigg raised his free hand to tap your lips twice and then returned it to your waist, his fingers widespread and gripping a little too hard to be comfortable.

“Whatever you want, so long as you leave a mark.” He tilted his neck to make it easier for you, leaning in as he jerked his knee upwards (your breath hitched). “I admit I am partial to _bites._ ”

What…the _fuck_. You were trying to come up with an excuse, but your brain refused to fucking work. You couldn’t think fucking anything logical or reasonable; you couldn’t focus on anything besides the pressure on your clit. Grigg is _dangerous_ ; he’s—you know what? Whatever. What _ever_. This might as well happen.

You locked eyes with him as you leant in, his green eyes darker yet with a newfound glint to them than in the bar, and you pressed your lips against Madonna’s signature. He heaved a heavy sigh, his chest rising and falling under your palms, when you gave it a sharp suck.

God fucking _damn it._ Whenever your teeth grazed his skin, Grigg would let out absolutely fucking _gorgeous_ , breathy noises, and when you finally bit down, he grunted so deeply that his abdomen shifted with it. Why couldn’t this man be your real soulmate?

You pulled away, quickly breaking the line of saliva between your mouth and his mark, and his hand flew to it, his own mouth stretched into a satisfied grin as he felt the teeth indents.

“Perfect,” he said, “You appear to be competent. Now—” He let loose his collar and cupped your face. “—let me return the favour.” And, maintaining eye contact, Grigg sank to his knees, dragging his hands down your sides.

He was kissing the button of your jeans and undoing it when the door jostled before slamming open, shaking dust from the walls from the impact. You jolted at the sight of Cooper furiously striding towards you, but Grigg’s mouth remained at the elastic of your newly exposed underwear.

“Get your _hands_ off my _wife_ ,” said Cooper as he tore Grigg away from you, giving him a kick while he was down, and Cooper had placed a hand on your shoulder and had opened his mouth to ask if you were all right when he did a double take.

“Wait just a damn minute,” said Cooper, brandishing his badge at Grigg, who was shuffling on his jacket, “I thought you _died_.”

“I thought I did, too,” said Grigg, zipping it up.

“You’re under fucking arrest.”

“Guzzle your own cum,” said Grigg, and he bolted out of the hallway and slammed the door shut—you grabbed Cooper by the sleeve.

“You know him?”

“Of course I fucking know him,” said Cooper, shuddering, “He is one of the aliens involved in conspiring to destroy the world. He died in battle with Space Cop.”

“Alien,” you said, “ _Alien._ ”

“And I don’t mean that he’s a foreigner,” said Cooper, raising a finger, “I mean that he’s a goddamn extraterrestrial. Now that it’s come to light that he is alive, this _does_ put this back in Space Cop’s jurisdiction as well as mine. I should find a payphone.”

“God, just use my phone,” you said, bending to dig it out of your purse, “Maybe we should get you one.”

“What? Why bother?”

“Never—never mind. Don’t worry about it,” you said. Fucking hell, it was like dealing with a six-year-old. You moved to give him your phone, but instead you opened the keypad. “Tell me the phone number. And _don’t_ say 9-1-1.”

Cooper recited the number, and while you waited for them to picked up, you asked, “Hey, I get that it was effective and less verbose, but why’d you call me your wife just then?”

“Oh, because we’re married. I went to the courthouse the first day we met,” he said, prying the phone from your grip when a voice started asking if anyone were there, “Soulmates don’t even need to sign a license; they just want to check the database to see if we’ve found each other. Hello, Ms. Galahad. This is Detective Ted Cooper. I need to speak to Chief Washington. Yes, I’ll wait.” Cooper plugged his opposite ear with his index finger and began to pace up and down the hall.

You sat on the bottom stair and buried your head in your hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes, the working name you use as a joke stays in the fic.


	5. E.T. and Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings: gore, vomit

The next few days were spent in a depressed, silent stupor. You didn’t feel like talking at all and like your voice was useless, since it wasn’t getting you anywhere. You requested to work backstage at the art museum, but you were denied. During your tours, it was if you weren’t the one talking but instead some disembodied voice who happened to know a lot about impressionism and pointillism. The charade exhausted you too much that by the end of the day, you didn’t have energy enough to do fucking anything besides crawl into bed.

On Thursday, you awoke to a curt text from your landlord, saying the heat’s broken and since it’s going to snow sometime in the next forty-eight hours, she had blankets and salt set out in the lobby for tenets to use. You lay back in bed, your phone on the pillow next to you, and desperately considered calling in sick. It’d be nice to spend the whole day sleeping, but—but Cooper would probably be in and out of the apartment.

Fucking Cooper. You’d been doing your best to cast your thoughts away from him for the past few days, but the more you considered it, you figured you could be in a much, much worse situation, should your soulmate be someone else. You might have been molested or scammed out of your savings by now, if someone really wanted to—Cooper was just big, dumb, and loud. There are worse people to be—to be suddenly married to.

Yeesh, you’re getting soft. You sat up in bed, rubbing sleep out of your eye. Oh, God. It’s Thursday. Thursday is murder night, statistically. You haven’t gone through the garbage at the Landmark for the past few days. Skip work, go root through garbage? Go through garbage during lunch break? Go through garbage after work?

Groaning, you began to pull on your stockings to the dulcet sounds of Cooper throwing up in the front bathroom.

***

Right, so according to the receipts, it had been an unusually slow week at the Landmark. Grigg had made his order three times this week, including the time you’d been with him, but only two of the regulars showed up at their normal times. The times and customers were oddly sparse. You supposed that’s due to the sharp decrease in temperature.

But it meant that you were able to do something you hadn’t before: hone in on the most likely Space Murder victim, who was this guy who lived alone in the triangle. In fact, he didn’t live too far from the graveyard behind the Landmark, so that’s where you returned that night to stake out his place—plus, if Grigg showed any activity, you could just jog across the graveyard to see if his light’s on.

A scarf concealed your breath in the cold. Your phone screen wouldn’t recognise gloves, so you read while you could and then waited in the dark against the tombstone for action, and against everything you’ve conditioned yourself in preparation for situations like this—with the façade of joviality at work, the stress of being married to an idiot, and suddenly being quite still—you fucking fell asleep. You _never_ fell asleep during this shit, and so you were seething at yourself once you awoke to the stench of drying blood and open flesh.

Stumbling around in the dark, you discovered the body at the border of the cemetery against the iron fence. Holding your scarf over your nose, you flicked your phone light on after ensuring no one was around.

And _oh_ , fuck, there was a reason no photos were being published of the Space Murder bodies. It was the guy you’d thought it had been, all right, but you wouldn’t’ve recognised him if you hadn’t spent the evening committing to memory his headshots on LinkedIn. He was all sliced up with meaningless cuts, up and down his arms, with a long one slashing his mouth vertically. Like the others, his torso had been torn open, ribs snapped to jut out at odd angles, and you bet that if you rooted through the gash, you wouldn’t find his liver, just the same as the other cases. The only thing you couldn’t find that was characteristic of the Space Murderer was an inscription carved somewhere on the body—maybe it was on his back, and that’s why you couldn’t see it. Maybe if you kicked the body over? You’d be able to move it right back; that wouldn’t be changing anything much.

So you scoped out the corpse and decided to nudge the man’s hip with the toe of your boot, once, twice, and— _holy hell_ —he didn’t flip to his back before his stomach and intestines gushed out of the wound and into the grass.

Your own stomach lurched, and you dry heaved, your nausea building. _Oh, God, oh, fuck_. You backed away as quickly as you could and were able to dash a few yards away before emptying the contents of your stomach near a cluster of headstones.

Hunched over in a squat, you swept hair away from your forehead and cringed. Now your DNA was at a crime scene. You crawled a few graves away from it to think without the stench getting to you. If you covered it up with grass or tried to bury it, then that’s obviously an intent to hide it; if you didn’t do anything about it, then there’s a chance it belongs to an animal but more likely to be found.

You sniffed and wiped your nose with your scarf. Is this what you’ve been reduced to? Is this really what you’re doing with your life?

You left it with a wild hope that vomit evaporates near the same rate as water.

***

After stubbing your toe on the ficus’s new location in the living room, you wandered into your kitchen the next morning, yawning and scratching your neck, to find Cooper arranging one among four bouquets of carnations and roses. Shaking your head, you opened a cabinet for a mug.

“Oh!” Cooper rustled one last flower and stepped away. “You surprised me.”

“Good,” you said, settling on a chipped, tea-stained mug and putting it under the keurig nozzle.

“I got you flowers.”

“I noticed.”

“I didn’t know what you like,” said Cooper, flinching when the coffee screeched and dribbled into your mug, “so I went with what was popular when I was out on the scene.” He leant on his elbow against the counter next to you, his gaze on your hands as you doctored your coffee. “Say, aren’t you supposed to be at work? Which I support. I support that you are just as capable as anyone else at making a living through labour. In fact, you’re probably doing a very good job at it.”

He reached out, took your coffee-stirring hand, and squeezed it. “It’s important to me that you know that I support you.”

You removed your hand with a jerk. “Right.” Licking the spoon, you strode over to put it in the sink. “I don’t have work today. Fridays begin my weekend, since I work Sundays.”

“That’ll work out well, then,” said Cooper, shivering and then snuggling into—hey, that was _your_ scarf. “I can come see you at work on Sundays. You can pretend to give me a tour so that you can relax. What are your plans for today?”

You shot him a sharp glare. “Plan A is to inject vodka directly into my veins.”

“You’re not going out, are you? Hold on,” said Cooper, bringing his pointer and thumb to his chin, “If you’re here alone, that Grigg might try to find you. He’s a mad genius. He’ll figure out where we live.”

“I don’t think he knows how to read.”

“You should come with me,” said Cooper, eyes wide and sincere, “I want you safe. I’d like to keep an eye on you.”

“No, thanks,” you said, and you sipped your coffee. Too sweet, but it’s okay for now.

Cooper smiled at that, his top teeth on display. “That’s all right. It gives me a chance to master the technology of the mobile phone. I’ll call you often to make sure no one’s broken in to chop off your head or violently make love to you.”

Cut to your stomach sinking as Space Cop’s car pulled into the cemetery’s parking lot. After you climbed out of the back seat, Cooper’s hand flew to your shoulder, as if checking if you’re really there. He guided you closer to him amidst the throng of police cars and ambulance workers, and he held up the crime scene tape for you to duck under.

Camera flashes for the autopsy report and police record are going off by the body, which is exactly like you left it: on its side with its organs leaking out, grey and brown in the early morning sun.

“Mm. I should get some, too, for my own records,” said Cooper, swinging the janky RCA camera to his shoulder. “I’ve been filming shots for fun videos, but that doesn’t mean I can’t bring technique into the crime lab, too. There’s something called a Dutch angle I want to try.”

Cooper crouched next to the victim and turned on his camera. Space Cop kicked the body, and its flesh jolted. He snarled.

“That’s a dead body, all right,” said Cooper, “What do you make of it, Space Cop?”

“It’s a goddamn massacre.” Space Cop cranked his laser gun. “It’s a wonder he’s not any deader.”

Cooper locked the lens cap back on and stood, a hand zipping to the small of your back just briefly to ensure you were still there. “Do you see the Space Murder message anywhere on him?”

Was he asking you or Space Cop? It would probably be better if you didn’t know anything. In fact, maybe you should act stupid. “This is a Space Murder? How do you know?”

“I don’t know if you read the papers, honey, but every Space Murder victim has the same message carved somewhere on them. If the message is present but not the liver, it’s for sure a Space Murder.” Cooper shuddered and pulled your scarf up around his nose. “Space Cop, why don’t you roll him over?”

“ _Yeahhhh_ ,” said Space Cop, who fucking planted his boot on the dead guy’s ass to kick/push him over, scraping mud all over the body.

Along the spine in small, scrappy letters, the murderer had carved with a thin knife the phrase _CALL HOME, NASA._

“Well,” you said, tilting your head, “I don’t think it’s an _E.T._ reference, exactly. The wording’s wrong.”

“Sloppy,” said Cooper, “ _Very_ sloppy. We’re dealing with a careless criminal. Space Cop, analysis?”

While Space Cop spat some frankly incredibly dialogue, you squinted at the message. Again, you wished Grigg were your soulmate, just so you could have a sample of his handwriting.

“—absolutely right, Space Cop. Let’s split up and look for clues.”

Space Cop jeered and marched over to the other policemen, and Cooper strode off into the sea of headstones. Sighing, you glanced one last time at the body, feeling awfully sorry for this guy who just liked old-fashioned bars and a comforting atmosphere and got fucking murdered for it, when it struck you that Cooper was headed towards the area where you threw up.

You ran after him, huffing in the cold, and you seized him in an aggressive hug from behind, his arms lifting to accommodate yours when he stopped in his tracks—six feet or so from your own crime scene.

“Cooper,” you said into the back of his trench coat, “Cooper, I don’t like this.”

He spun in your grip, an arm passing over your head, and you pressed your face into his shoulder. Cooper slid two fingers up from under your chin to cup your face, directing you to look at him. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Too graphic for you?”

“No,” you said, scrunching your eyes shut, “I’m desensitised to that shit. It’s just that it’s so damn near to where we live. I won’t feel safe even going outside, any more.”

“It’ll be all right. I’m on the case, and I’m right here,” said Cooper, and he rested his other hand on your waist—he didn’t bring you closer, though, so you did that, making sure your tits were prominently against his chest. He didn’t even look down; he was too focused on your expression.

“It’s just. It’s just—” You licked your lips and sniffed for effect. “—It’s a little too personal, now, you know? You think these things only happen on TV, and now there’s a murder near our apartment. I don’t like it. It makes me uncomfortable. It’s like living next to Jeffery Dahmer.” Sighing in a choked-up way, you leant into his hand, and he rubbed his thumb across your cheek—a blue spark crackled over your skin. Both of you were visibly startled, but neither mentioned it. “I’m just so nervous that the murderer’s gonna climb into our window and that we’re gonna be next. Oh! Fuck,” you said, hugging him tightly, “It kills me to admit this, but Cooper, I’m scared.”

It also killed you that big, dumb Cooper swallowed your act like a sweltering man fresh out of the desert, killed you that he now cupped your face with both hands and held your gaze with pure sincerity. “It’s normal to be scared,” he said softly, “but you don’t have to be.” His hands were sizzling with blue static popping around his palms, and he was careful not to get near your eyes. “I’m here. You’re here. And I’ll protect you. I’ll stay with you, for _you_ —you are _precious_ to me.”

Cooper bent down to kiss your forehead—and the subsequent shout from the burn made the police come running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's amazing how much you can get accomplished when you're supposed to be doing homework


	6. Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want (Instrumental)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's getting schlocky up in here, ladies.

“I don’t think I understand what that is supposed to be. Is it a commentary on classicism, or what have you?”

“It’s a young woman holding a peach, Coop,” you said, clasping your hands behind your back, a smile creeping onto your face as Cooper squinted at the painting. “By Frederick Devereux de Dubois. The _style_ is classicism; you might have meant _classism._ And no, it’s a woman holding a peach and nothing else.”

Cooper frowned, his lower lip jutting out, and he crossed his arms over his chest with a huff. “I don’t get why it’s in the museum, though. It’s not significant if it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Do you not think it’s pretty?”

“Well, of course it is; look at the folds in her dress, the embroidery,” said Cooper, outlining the area in the painting by flitting his hand over it, “Lots of talent. _Very_ pretty. Very. But why would something like this be recorded?”

You stepped closer to the painting and grinned. At least _he_ asked questions worth thinking about. “Are you familiar with a painting called _The Adoration of the Lamb_? It’s by these Flemish guys, Jan and Hubert van Eyck. It’s not here—we’re not important enough to house it.”

Nodding, Cooper licked his lips and then curled them inward.

“It’s a fuckton of people, clergy and nobles and lower classes and angels, all around this altar upon which this lamb with a questionable snout that’s obviously Jesus—the lamb, not the snout— _obviously_ —and it’s important because it shows that everyone in that culture knew that Jesus was the centre of their lives. And so religious stuff was the point of most art. _This_ fucking painting,” you said, jerking your thumb in its direction, “This _Clementine at Sunrise_ is important because it’s not important. It’s bullshit. It’s a bullshit painting with no deeper meaning. Art shifts with the culture, and the more and more mundane was being preserved with the same holiness sort of sense as religious subjects.”

“So, it’s _supposed_ to be dumb?”

“Yeah. But it’s pretty.”

“But it’s pretty,” conceded Cooper, and he looked sideways at you. “ _You’re_ —”

“Shut up,” you said, bumping his shoulder with your own, “Shut the fuck up.”

His giggle reverberated through the mostly deserted gallery—an elderly couple far off shot you a sour expression. Supressing a grin, you guided him to the next room and towards a portrait in pointillism.

All in all, it was an almost perfectly squandered Sunday afternoon. Leo and Tracey had taken the obnoxious, matching-t-shirts groups, and Cooper had latched onto you, claiming he had never been to an art museum and that he is new to the big city. He’d told you to explain only what you felt like and not to be formal—just to be you. And so, he was taking his sweet-ass time about it, taking the time to actually read the little descriptions under the art. Cooper had not heard of most of this shit, nor did he understand it, but, at least, he let it soak in. Mostly, he listened to you talk shit about some of the artists and people you dealt with, but eventually, there were bouts of comfortable silence.

“Is it going to keep snowing through the night?”

“Yeah, I checked online,” you said, “It’s going to keep on for a few days now. I’m already freezing my fucking fingers off; I’m excited to see what other extremities I lose. And _here_ we come to the end of our exhibition on the Old Masters from Private Collections, sponsored by the Stephen Kohl Charitable Trust.”

“Are your fingers red?” asked Cooper, following you under the archway and into the marble alcove above the stairway, “Mine are all the time, now.”

You held up your hands, leaning backwards on the iron railing. “Not right now. Suppose yours are a lasting side effect of your time freeze?”

“I’m not sure.” Cooper grasped the tips of your fingers to flip your hands over, inspecting the other side. “The morning vomiting is finally phasing out, I believe, but the state of my balls is questionable.”

“God, Coop, keep your voice down,” you said, nudging him as another group passed you and started down the stairs. You withdrew your hands and stuck them in your pockets. “ _Fuck_.”

Cooper leant against the railing with you, his elbows resting on it. He swallowed as he glanced down the staircase, as if considering spitting down it. “Are you all right?”

“I’m just tired,” you said, closing your eyes and tilting your head back, “I can’t drag this tour out much longer, and it’s still an hour and a half before closing. I wanna bathe the Milwaukee grit off my skin and crawl into bed to hibernate.”

“Hibernation ain’t what it’s glorified to be,” said Cooper, and he pointed to the platform halfway down the staircase. “We can waste more time. Why don’t you tell me about this one painting down there?” His hand shot to yours, brushing against it, once he realised what he was doing, and then he tentatively rested his fingertips in the curve of yours.

Biting the inside of your cheek, you hesitated before taking his hand. “Sure,” you said, “I can do that.” You led him down the stairs with your gaze on him instead of where you were going; he wasn’t quite smiling, but you couldn’t describe his expression as anything else. “This is part of Peder Balke’s series on Nordkapp, which is the north cape of Norway. Most of the pieces in this series are housed at the Met, so this one is showcased alone on this staircase to highlight it. It is supposed to depict the cape at witching hour—three in the morning—as opposed to—”

Cooper scowled the moment he tore his attention from you and onto the painting, and when you turned, the painting was blocked by a short, leather-clad blond, his arms limp at his sides.

“ _Grigg,_ how’d you—”

“You’re under—”

“This is the only depiction of my star system I have seen on Earth,” said Grigg over the both of you. “I have seen your own system and planets. I have seen some of those I have persecuted. But here—” He pointed, with effort, lifting himself to his toes, to the leftmost top corner of the painting. “—is my star system. I am unfamiliar with whatever inferior name humans call it, but we call it _Thootes._ ” Grigg spun on his heel, his shoulders pivoting in a perfect circle. “Tell me about this image.”

Cooper reached for the handcuffs on his belt, but Grigg drew what looked like a phasor and aimed it at you. “Tell me,” he said again, this time with a darker tone, “about this image.”

Cooper scanned the staircase, which had emptied out, here, at the end of an unpopular exhibit on a back stair, and the back of his hand grazed yours. You subtly rubbed a knuckled against him before stepping forward to stand at Grigg’s side.

“It’s by Peder Balke,” you said slowly, your arms behind your back, giving time for Cooper to think something up, “A Norwegian. Known for landscapes in the capital- _R_ Romantic movement.”

You drew Grigg’s attention to Nordkapp and glanced back at Cooper, his face screwed up in thought. “Nineteenth century. He did a lot of paintings on this place, this cape, even though he only visited the coast once. In 1832, he—”

“I want this painting,” said Grigg, crossing his arms and facing you. “Disable the alarms.”

“God, fuck, please don’t do anything dumb.” You sighed, your shoulders heaving. “I can order you a print of it, I guess. Don’t take the fucking painting, Grigg.” _Do_ something, Cooper. C’mon. This isn’t hard (Fucking body slam him, if nothing else).

Grigg glowered, and his tongue flicked over his lower lip. “I hope this will not put a damper on our relationship.”

“What fu—”

Grigg grabbed your hair at the root and smashed your head against the wall—Cooper made a lunge in your direction, but Grigg had shoved you down the stairs by then.

Your memory of the rest of the evening came in disconnected flashes: Cooper helping you upright at the bottom of the stairs, a _zoop_ noise from Grigg, a whiter rectangle than the rest of the wall when an EMT rushed you by where the painting had been, questioning that shifted into a blur—and then you voluntarily zoned out, because waiting in a car was taking too long.

Cooper woke you up outside your apartment building to help you up the stairs, and you didn’t recognise you were home until Cooper was tightening the shock blanket around you on your couch.

“Cooper,” you said, steadying yourself by digging your fingers into the cushions, “Cooper. I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Hm? What do you mean?” He raised both of your hands to your chest before placing a strawberry smoothie in them.

“I’m not—this is the couch. You sleep here,” you said, squinting as Cooper ripped open the straw.

“I didn’t think you wanted smoothie on your bed, should you spill it,” he said, and he added under his breath, “And you probably don’t want me on your bed.”

“I don’t have a concussion,” you said, a hand flying to your forehead (Cooper had to steady the cup as he stuck the straw into it), “I fell asleep for a long-ass time. What’s?”

“No bones broken, and you’re right, no concussion.” Cooper bit his lip, his teeth sinking into it until it was white. “You’re really fucking bruised up, and you—you’re going to hate this—you fucking passed out from dehydration.”

“Oh, God,” you said, and you rolled your eyes (although that kind of hurt) and slumped in your seat, “How embarrassing.”

“They said to keep fluids in you, so—”

“What happened to Nordkapp?”

Cooper sucked in through his teeth. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I was so focused on you that I didn’t see what Grigg did with it.”

You bolted upright (knocking the smoothie down, and Cooper caught it and hastily set it on the coffee table) and said, “Oh, God! Oh, _fuck_.” You kicked the shock blanket off of you and rose, but Cooper had to take you by the shoulders when dizzying, black blotches filled the edges of your vision.

“What? What is it, honey?” His eyes scanned your face, his thumbs rubbing your shoulders.

“Hold on; it’ll pass,” you said, resting a hand on his chest as the blackness faded, and you sighed again. “Cooper, I’m invoking a temporary period of no questions concerning about what I’m about to tell you: I know where Grigg is, and I know where he’s put the painting, though I don’t know what he’s going to do with it. I—hm.” The dizziness returned, though only for a moment. “Yeah. I’m the only one who knows where he is, and I need to get the painting back before he fucks it up.”

After a beat, Cooper lowered you to the couch, and he rewrapped the shock blanket around you. “I don’t mind if this trauma has made you repress and confuse memories,” he said, squeezing the sides of your mouth to pucker your lips—he slid the smoothie straw inside. “I’ve been informed that a girl with a bit of brain damage is quite attractive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _adoration of the lamb_ is a real painting, and so's the story with it. the peach painting is fake, but there was a movement like that. peder balke painted a series on nordkapp, but the one described is not one of them--this is bc most of them occur at dusk, and i needed a starscape. [here](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/441379) is my favourite of the series.
> 
> i know nothing about art.


	7. Cry for a Shadow (Anthology 1 Version)

“That’s _not_ how you hold a gun.”

Gripping the gun tighter, you wiped Cooper’s spit off your ear before taking another step up the tavern staircase to peer around the corner towards the room Grigg hid in. “And how long have they let you use big boy bullets, dipshit? Take you off of make-believe ammunition?”

“S’pose it’s been about sixty-one years,” said Cooper, his breath balmy on the back of your neck—you edged away from him, careful of the knobbly carpet.

“You know what? Just shut the fuck up. You stay here,” you said, tapping his chest to guide him out of sight from the top of the staircase, “You will inevitably fuck this up. Stay here and, I don’t know, count to one hundred. Can you count that high?”

“I think I should be present in apprehending a criminal. Official police business should involve a police,” said Cooper, puffing out his chest while straightening his spine. You would’ve missed it if not for the lightning flashing through the far window. “If you would like to proceed as a nasty vigilante, be my guest.”

“Thanks,” you said, and you crept down the hallway.

“Dang it, that’s not!” Cooper scrambled to catch up with you (the first roll of thunder for the night covered his lumbering footing, thank God). “That’s not what I meant.” He knocked into you when he tripped over carpet, and you glared at him. “How do you know the painting is here?”

“I don’t, but Grigg is.” You nodded towards the dim light leaking out from underneath the door, illuminating the sickly green paisley of the carpet.

Cooper pouted and propped his fists on his hips. “You led me to believe we were recovering the Nordkapp painting, not apprehending the Space Murderer.”

“Did you let your mind wander without calling it back?” You shook your head. “Whatever. Whatever!”

With your finger on the trigger, you kicked the door directly beneath the handle (but unnecessarily; the latch hadn’t set), and it swung open on Grigg kneeling on the floor, still annoyingly handsome and overly clad in leather. However, he crouched over a body, a wide gash on its abdomen with blood and intestines overflowing to seep into the carpet, and though he sat with his back to the flickering lamp, his face darkened with the stain of blood as he sank his teeth into a lump of ruddy flesh—the liver, warm but clammy in his bloody hands, torn skin underneath his fingernails. Against the stacks of old bar stools and a ficus that looked suspiciously like the one in your own apartment lay the painting, which, from where you were standing, had gained some red in the water.

“A _ha_ ,” said Cooper, his eyes bright as a bolt of lightning illuminated his sharp profile “so _you’re_ the Space Murderer!”

Grigg’s blank face somehow fell even blanker while you slapped a hand to your forehead.

“You, you leave everything alone.” you said, gesturing loosely towards the painting with your gun, “Get that and scram. Don’t spill beer or anything on it.” You pinched the bridge of your nose. “Grigg, why are you _eating_ the liver? I thought you would be doing…not that.”

Grigg took another tiny bite with his tiny mouth and swallowed thickly. “My alien biology requires disgusting human livers to digest alcohol.”

“Oh?” Cooper treaded towards Grigg, his grabby hands reaching towards the Nordkapp painting. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

Grigg blinked. “This man weighs 38 pounds more than I do.” He yanked part of the intestines out of the gash in the body. “Thirty-seven.”

“Abominable. Simply abominable,” said Cooper, “You are under arrest for murder, theft, trespassing, jaywalking—”

“Just take the painting, Cooper,” you said, lifting your gun to aim it at Grigg, who chewed liver with his mouth open, blood dripping from his blond moustache onto his leather jacket.

When Cooper’s fingertips grazed the frame, Grigg slammed a hand onto the canvas at the same time thunder clapped, and you let out a gasp as he withdrew to reveal a bloody handprint, right on the moonlight reflecting onto the water. “No. _No_ ,” he said, “This is proof of my star system in Earth databases. It’s mine.”

“You are no patron of the arts,” said Cooper, and he shot Grigg in the shin.

“What the _fuck_ , Cooper,” you said, jerking Cooper away while Grigg shoved the rest of the liver in his mouth and gripped his leg.

Cooper raised an eyebrow. “I had to take control of the situation, as a man.”

You gritted your teeth. “Yeah, well, as a man, you’re about to have a foot up your ass.”

“The tiny alien has the smallest feet out of the three of us. Let it be his,” said Cooper, glancing down, and when Grigg wasn’t on the floor where he looked, Cooper followed the blood trail to the window, which Grigg was prying open. “Hey, you can’t just escape the scene of the crime! You’re the criminal!”

“The current one will get bloodier if you don’t shut the fuck up,” you said, and you stormed towards Grigg, who leapt through the window with your finger grazing the cuffs of his jeans. You swore under your breath as you gripped the windowsill, glaring down the two stories.

Rolling his shoulders back, Grigg pushed on his knees to stand in the mud, shaking out the leg Cooper had shot and began to wobble away.

“What the fuck? Grigg,” you called, “You should be dead by now.”

Grigg hopped to yank up his pants by the belt loops, not even looking back as he straggled closer to the graveyard. “I’m a bad bitch; you can’t _kill_ me.”

The sky had cracked open by the time you rushed outside, completely soaking you by the time a panting Cooper caught up behind you, hunched over with his hands on his knees.

“Incredible,” you said, scowling, “ _Incredible_.” You swept some straggly hair out of your face and wiped away rain close to trailing into your eyes. You buried your face in your hands, and then you peeked through your fingers to scan the graveyard—you couldn’t make anything out past the first row of gravestones.

Cooper cleared his throat and coughed until you turned towards him. “It’s been a hell of a day, but that’s what I call a job well done. I am very pleased that you didn’t get severely injured during this raid,” he said, furrowing his brow to let you know he was dead serious, and water funnelled off of the crease. “You wouldn’t be any good if you couldn’t cook or clean.”

Pressure swarmed throughout your chest and face, as if you were a bicycle tire being pumped too full too quickly, and your tongue felt too big for your mouth, like it wasn’t meant to be there, be it resting against the roof of your mouth or against the back of your lower teeth.

Still, you forced your face to be as relaxed as possible until you stood right in front of him with a dangerously blank glare into his big, dumb, brown eyes. “Cooper,” you said, your hands in fists at your sides before you realised, and you squeezed them before releasing to press your palms into the sides of your thighs. We are extremely calm. We are so calm that we could slip into a coma. “Should the punishment fit the crime?”

He cocked his head to the side, water drizzling off his oddly pointed ears. “Absolutely.”

“Explain.”

“Well,” he began, ducking his head as he looked at you, his gaze warm and affectionate as it swept over your face, “Say you’ve been killing people. Call me old-fashioned, but I am a firm believer that you should be sentenced to death if you’ve killed people. That means you’ve made them dead, so you should be dead. If you’ve been breaking into places or stealing, you should do some jail time. If you’ve stolen gold and bamboozled the human race, your spaceship should be blown up by one of your own.”

You don’t have time to unpack that, so you bit your lip and carried on. “So, what would happen if someone were to take an idiot by his damn tie and choke him until he passes out in the mud, leaving him in the rain to lark about pathetically in his tacky suit?”

Cooper narrowed his eyes while rain fell loudly onto his coat, each drop distinct, and he ran his tongue over his upper lip when water droplets gathered there. His face flushed from running, he clenched his jaw, the corner of his mouth twitching as he glared at you. For the first time, it struck you that he was actually a little pretty. Perhaps it was because water was in your eyes, or perhaps you just have a thing for angry men. His eyes shot to your mouth when you bit your bottom lip again, but they rose to lock with your own eyes.

“That would mean instant death.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: you furiously google "how to remove blood from priceless painting" to the sounds of iced tea being stirred.


	8. Questions in a World of Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this just keeps getting more and more embarrassing.
> 
> warnings for some grigg action. not that you mind, right?

**_PRICELESS BALKE PAINTING RECOVERED BY SPACE COP_ **

****

_On Sunday night, the sixth iteration of Peder Balke’s “Nordkapp” series was recovered after its theft from the Milwaukee Art Museum by Milwaukee’s own Space Cop, of the Space Cop case. Space Cop rescued the painting from a storage room on the second story of the historic Landmark Inn._

_The thief, previously identified as the notorious Grigg of the Space Cop case, unfortunately, is still at large, having slipped through the clutches of the Milwaukee Police. Space Cop was otherwise occupied with the safe return of the painting._

_An art museum educator on the scene, when asked about the recovery of the painting, commented, “I don’t know anything. Don’t talk to me. Tell everyone to stop talking to me.”_

Crumpling the newspaper up and chucking it to the floor, you curled into yourself more underneath your blankets and grumpily snuggled into your cocoon. Fucking _shit._ Just what a sort-of criminal needs: a quotation in the newspaper. Association with the _law._

Well. _More_ association with the law.

And Space Cop had waltzed onto the fucking scene with what Cooper described as his posse, fucking destroying evidence (a positive thing for you) and taking credit for what Cooper and you had done (also positive, but it made you feel lousy). Space Cop had spat on reporters’ faces in the rain, and Cooper hadn’t let you sneak off. His grip on your forearm and the blue sparks left burns on your skin, and a reporter had spotted it—prompting an enquiry, with Cooper enthusiastically explaining the little he knew.

And that’s how they got the quotation.

You were absolutely burning with rage—metaphorically. If only it were literal. But you shivered and pulled the covers over your head. Your landlord was right about the snow and the heat being broken, but the extra blankets she’d given you hardly kept in your body heat. All this damn snow, and you hadn’t left your bed. Cooper could have lit some French fries on fire in the kitchen, and you wouldn’t know.

Where was he? He was being suspiciously quiet, if he were even in the apartment at all. What’s he screwing with this time? If he found the new hiding spot for alcohol, he’s a dead man.

“Knock, knock,” came a voice through the door, without a physical knock, and the knob started to turn.

You brought enough of the blankets away from your mouth to shout, “Fuck off!”

“I haven’t heard from you all day, and it’s been more than sixteen hours, so I’m assuming you’re awake!” Cooper shuffled in and slammed your bedroom door shut, shaking the walls and upsetting dust—in the other room, something crashed to the floor, sounding a bit like pottery smashing. “I brought you some liquids. If you don’t keep fluids in you, you’re going to pass out from dehydration again. We can’t have that.”

“Leave me alooooooone,” you said through your hole in the blankets, “You are the worst person. I hate you.”

“I have liquids for you.”

“Stop saying it like that. Are any of them alcoholic?”

“No,” said Cooper, and he popped an ice cube in your mouth.

You shot upright while you choked on it, your hand massaging your throat. The grunt of the cold swarmed around your upper half, and you hunched over on yourself, swallowing repeatedly to get the cube down.

“Ah, you _are_ awake. Good morning, sweetie.”

“I will slit your throat.” You cleared your own, the ice cube sliding down at last. “Don’t fucking—” You cut yourself off. Oh?

He got on some knobbly, cerulean sweater over a rumpled button-down and a pair of jeans that fit well, emphasising that this man had no ass. The outfit actually kind of concealed that he had a body at all, and he ended up looking a little bit like a human person. Huh.

Cooper thrust a tray onto your lap, barely giving you time to steady it before the copious mugs and bottles toppled to the ground. “Liquids for your health. I even put the little straw in your capri-sun.”

And so he had. Coffee (only judging by the smell, though; by sight, it was more difficult), a couple of types of tea, what looked like a strawberry milk pouch you’d stowed in the back of your refrigerator about three years ago—that had been weaselled away; he’d better not have dishevelled your fridge.

You set the tray aside on the bed and bundled up further with the fallen blankets. “Aren’t you fucking cold?”

“No,” he said, and he knelt at the side of your bed, his hands clasped on the mattress. “But I wanted to ask after your soulmark. Does it itch?”

You narrowed your eyes. “No, and it doesn’t mean anything, if yours does. It’s called having skin.”

“I see,” said Cooper, and he pushed the tray towards you again. “Drink. You’re going to need liquids in you if you’re going to work later.”

“They’ve given me time off,” you said, scowling, “The museum has brought in some painting restorationists from D.C. to see if they can perform a miracle. They said I don’t have to come in for three days, so. Cheers to my mental health.”

“Indeed.” Cooper licked his lower lip. “How shall I care for you in the meantime? I can act like a wife and cook for you, put a damp washcloth on your head, and such.”

It’s like interacting with a fictional advertisement in _Tom and Jerry._ You shut your eyes to take a deep breath, and said in a voice that hopefully sounded tantalising, “Cooper, you told me you wanted to romance me. Want to know how my _ideal_ partner would act?”

Cooper edged closer to you, his hands gripping the duvet. “Yes. Desperately. Wholly. Devotedly.”

Sucking in through your teeth, you kept on. “I happen to have a _huge_ thing for men who don’t say or do anything. The man of my dreams? A statue.” You leant towards him, bundled up like a Russian babushka, and looked at him through half-lidded eyes. “The more completely still and silent a man is, the more _turned on_ I get. Get the picture, Cooper?”

Cooper started to nod, realised he was moving, and opened his mouth to say something—but that was bad, too, wasn’t it?

Oh, my God, he bought it. Cooper may be the dumbest person alive. The standards for the police force back in the day must have been minimal. Well, that was still—no time for that. Guess it’s time to skedaddle out of here. Staying in bed with _him_ around won’t be relaxing.

“Better go get on that, won’t you?”

Cooper stiffly got up and goose-stepped out of your room. Incredible. In. Credible.

Time to go get fucked up. _Without_ police supervision.

***

It took the better part of two hours and your patience, but you found him by the time the sun had sunken past the horizon—not that street lamps helped on this side of town; most of them burnt out long ago, and the ones that still functioned flickered.

After scaling the chain-link fence and navigating through half-pipes and decks (were you supposed to walk on them in normal shoes?), you caught sight of Grigg spread out at the bottom of the skate bowl, a six-pack next to him while he threw gravel at a graffiti mural on the inner curve.

“Didn’t take you for a skate rat, Grigg,” you said, easing yourself down to sit at the lip of the skate bowl, dangling your legs into it.

From the opposite side at the bottom, Grigg glared up at you. “I am no _rat._ I am from Thootes.”

“They don’t have rats on Thootes?”

“Go away,” said Grigg, and he flipped one of the empty beer bottles to himself before chunking it at you.

Flinching, you drew your legs out of the bowl, but the bottle shattered below where you’d been, anyway, glass shards settling in the bend. “C’mon, Grigg. You know I’m no threat by now.”

He scoffed. “I expected as much.” He crossed his arms, his leather jacket creaking. “You have no idea how much control you have over me, do you?”

Hm?

“You drive me crazy, Madonna,” said Grigg, furrowing his brow, “I _believe_ that is how humans would say it. And don’t make me say it again.”

Oh. Right. But you _weren’t_ his soulmate; you’d been very obviously lying—but, but did that mean he was genuinely attracted to you? _Hello_. Hello, strange, muscly, ruggedly handsome alien boy in leather and tight pants.

Would it be very evil of you to make out with someone who isn’t your soulmate, even when you’ve met your soulmate and have accidentally married them (albeit without your consent)? It might be, but you can be a little evil today, as a treat. Cooper’s been driving you fucking insane, anyway. Dick.

Careful not to snag your leggings on glass, you pushed off from the top of the bowl and slid down the side, absolutely frigid through all your layers of clothes. You crawled the short distance to Grigg to sit at his side.

Silence.

His frown deepening, Grigg roughly shoved his arm around your shoulders and yanked you towards him, and though every kettle in your brain was whistling, you curled into his shoulder (cold leather in cold weather?) and lay a hand on his chest. Interesting. You almost hoped you got killed because of this; that’d be really hot.

Grigg wasn’t even looking at you; he was biting his lower lip with his jaw poked out while he fumed in the opposite direction. He squeezed you for a moment, his bicep bulging despite the leather.

Now to get his tongue in your mouth. With emotionally constipated people, you have to start slowly. Get them talking about something comfortable but mindless to them. “Grigg, what’s it like on Thootes?”

Grigg propped his leg up on his other. “Silver grass. Mountains, ten miles high. Five moons. Ten suns.” He nibbled at a hangnail on his thumb. “At night, the air is rich. And sweet. You want to _drink_ it, over breathing it.”

“That sounds—”

“It’s bullshit,” spat Grigg, “It’s what they put on the travel brochures. That blurb is ingrained on my consciousness from a commercial campaign that ran for decades.”

You let out a laugh, your fingers curling in on Grigg’s shirt. “That’s actually pretty great. What’s your take on it?”

“Fucking shithole where I lived.” He started jostling his leg up and down. “But I am keen to return.”

“Tell me why.”

He shot you a look out of the corner of his eye before averting his gaze quickly. “The air here is difficult to breathe. Terrible amount of pollution. Humans are fucking disgusting.”

Metaphorically, you’re grinding a cheese grater against the dignity part of your brain. You bit your lip and blinked slowly up at him. “All of them, Grigg?”

The corner of his mouth twitching, he said, “No. There is one that is…acceptable.”

You sat up straight and placed a hand on his cheek, scratching his beard on the way. “Grigg, baby.”

“Madonna,” he said, shifting so that he faced you straight on, and he gripped your shoulders. “I can’t stop thinking about you. It is problematic. I have to concoct a new mission, now that I am alone on your planet. My comrades are dead, and I have no method of returning to Thootes. I have to _think_.” He moved to sit on his knees, and his hands slid up across your shoulders, one stopping to hold the back of your neck and the other rising to graze your cheekbone with the back of his fingers. “But you consume my thoughts. You’re fuckin’ slick as tits.”

That’s enough.

You closed the distance between you, his mouth already open when it met yours. His beard scuffed your skin, and he honestly _smelled_ like he’d been camping out in the skate park for weeks, but the warmth of his mouth and the way he kissed you like he was fucking starving made up for it. He made a fist in your hair and pulled, opening your mouth even more, like he was trying to make up for the lost time when his tongue wasn’t on the inside of your teeth, and he was pushing you down to lie flat in the skate bowl, swinging his leg over your hip, dragging his hand down your neck, past your collarbone, past your—

Grigg broke off, inhaling sharply. “Blood. I smell _blood_ ,” he said, and he bent back to check your lips for it, but upon finding none, he searched you in a manhandly-sort-of-way. “Ah,” he said when he reached your thigh, “You _are_ the source.”

“Damn it.” You contorted your leg back as close to your face as you could so that you could see where the glass had torn through your leggings—after you’d gone out of your way to prevent it, too. “The cold must’ve kept me from notic—noticing,” you said, trailing off.

Grigg had pinned your leg to your chest, where you’d held it, and he hunched to swipe his tongue over the cut on your inner thigh, maintaining eye contact with you from between your legs. “You know,” he said, pausing to remove the glass with his fucking teeth, only to spit it out to the side (holy shit), “I have yet to accept your soulmark. As I recall, it is in a place you don’t show the public. We’re not in public now.” Grigg flattened his tongue to lick over the cut again, the tip sliding under the fabric of your leggings as he circled it, all while staring you down.

“Holy shit,” you said, “ _Grigg_.”

“You do not have to say anything. Let me take you as you are.”

“Not if _I_ have anything to say about it!”

No. _No._ No, goddammit! Fucking _Cooper_ rolled up to the rim of the skate bowl in a pair of battered roller skates, his red hands on his hips with a triumphant (?) grin stretching across his frostbitten face.

“I am _extremely_ busy right now, Cooper,” you said from underneath Grigg, “so if you could fuck all the way off, I’d—”

“I’m here to save you! Don’t complain,” said Cooper, wobbling and throwing his arms out to steady himself. “Allow me to rip that scoundrel off of you.”

Grigg relaxed his grip on your leg, letting your knee hook over his shoulder as he glared back at Cooper. “How are you going to do that?”

“I’ll—”

“How are you going to get down here?”

You brought a fist to your mouth, doing your goddamn best not to show any emotion. Do it. _Do it_ ; I dare you, Cooper. We’re on the precipice of something farcical.

But a blue spark shot from your fist to your mouth, the shock of it pulling your focus from Cooper’s fall into the bowl and his subsequent flailing on his back with his roller skates, because minute, blue bolts of lightning coming from your soulmark scoured your lips, taking a layer of dead skin with them.

By the time the lightning retreated to wrap around your soulmark finger to hiss and snap at you before fading, Grigg and Cooper had already been shouting enough at each other to attract attention from the security guards to the skate park—lights being turned on in the neighbourhood, dogs barking, flashlights scanning the park.

Grigg swore loudly in what must have been his native language and scrambled out of the bowl with much more agility than he looked capable of; Cooper was telling you to get up, but it wasn’t registering. At your blank stare, he helped you up and jerked you by the arm into the cradle pipe that led out of the far side of the bowl—but you ended up leading him the last stretch, since he ran out of momentum. Once you yanked him into the pipe, he crashed into you, knocking you to the ground.

Cooper slapped a hand over your mouth before you could say anything, and he wrapped his other arm around your waist to hold you tightly to him, shifting his weight so that he didn’t smother you. He tucked what he could of his coat around you, and he shot you a look to be stop struggling. He looked pointedly at the roof of the cradle.

Where the footsteps of the guards creaked overhead. Two of them, bitching to each other about people breaking in too frequently to smoke and vandalise the park, about how the dogs barking woke everyone up. Shouting that trespassing is illegal, that they’ll call the police.

But you heard them as if they were underwater. Your lips tingled from the lightning, and your soulmark burned, the blue tendrils having faded into a blue stain on your skin.

You hadn’t noticed you’d been shaking until Cooper held your head to his chest to steady you, stroking your back along with it. He was quietly shushing you, telling you that he was glad you’re safe, that everything was going to be okay. What—what was he comforting you from, again?

You blinked away tears—hey, those weren’t tears. Your eyes were just watering. You had no reason to cry, anyway; it’s probably just the cold. Seriously. What’s going on? Nothing’s _wrong,_ exactly, but it’s like your body is shutting down.

Cooper tilted your face up to wipe your tears with his thumb with a firm look of concentration.

The beam of a flashlight scanned the bottom of the skate bowl.

You shakily inhaled to hold your breath (sounding like a hiccup), and you clamped your mouth shut, your vision blotching out around the edges.

Cooper pressed his lips to your forehead, without sparks.

Your soulmark began to itch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alien private eye lore? in _my_ fanfic? it's more likely than you think.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm disappointed in me, too.


End file.
